New footage of Tiger Woods’ DUI arrest in Florida sparked a flood of reactions. And not all of them were sympathetic.
After bodycam footage was released by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, netizens dissected his chaotic sobriety test and obsessed over odd details, including a moment where he claimed he had just gotten off the phone with “the president.”
The 50-year-old golf legend was behind the wheel on March 27 when his Land Rover clipped a truck on Jupiter Island, north of Miami.
The impact on a narrow two-lane road led to his car veering off the roadway and flipping onto its side. The sheriff said he was driving at a “high rate of speed” on a road with a 30mph limit.
Image credits: Martin County Sheriff's Office
The newly released body camera footage filmed Woods walking along the road after the crash. He appeared to be ending a phone call with someone and told deputies he was speaking with “the president.”
It is unclear which president he was referring to.
Kneeling next to the roadway, Woods calmly tried to explain what happened in the moments before the crash.
“I looked down at my phone, and all of a sudden — boom,” he told deputies. His SUV was still lying on its side a few feet away.
He stayed composed during multiple field sobriety exercises but appeared to be struggling with following certain instructions.
Image credits: tigerwoods
The sports icon was seen moving his head when asked to keep still during a vision test. He also miscounted during a coordination sequence, which involved stacking his fists, clapping, and counting aloud.
One of the deputies at the scene said Woods had bloodshot and glassy eyes, and his pupils were “extremely” dilated.
The troubled champion told deputies he had not consumed any alcohol but admitted to taking “a few” prescription medications that day.
Upon inspection, the investigators found two white pills in his pocket. They were later confirmed to be hydrocodone, a prescription opioid used to treat severe, chronic pain.
A breath test registered 0.000, indicating that there was no alcohol detected on his breath. He, however, refused to submit to a urine test to determine if chemical or other controlled substances were in his system.
Deputies placed him under arrest after a pattern of missteps following the rollover crash.
“At this time, I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, OK?” a deputy told Woods while placing handcuffs on him. “And you’re under an unknown substance, OK, so at this time you are under arrest for DUI.”
Following his arrest, Woods was seen in the back of the patrol vehicle, sarcastically saying, “this is fun.”
He was noticeably sweating before a deputy asked, “Are you cool back there?”
His “nope” prompted the deputy to turn on the air conditioner.
Woods is currently dating Vanessa Trump, the ex-wife of Donald Trump Jr., the oldest son of US President Donald Trump.
They are “in love,” an insider told People following the DUI arrest on March 27.
Woods underwent his seventh back surgery last fall and ruptured his Achilles tendon a year ago. This can sometimes make him “difficult to be around” because of the pain. But his former model girlfriend, 48, is “happy with him,” the source said.
“She has her hands full sometimes, but Vanessa also has a life of her own and children to care for, so she isn’t around it all the time,” the insider continued.
“Any issues they have are not about her,” they added. “It’s dealing with his frustrations about playing great golf and his pain that at some times is really confining.”
Image credits: The White House
Amid sources saying there were no breakup talks following the arrest, US President Donald Trump acknowledged the arrest and said he felt “so badly” about it.
“He’s got some difficulty. There was an accident, and that’s all I know,” he told reporters on Friday. “He’s a very close friend of mine ... an amazing person, an amazing man.”
The golfer is under “tremendous physical pressure from his various ailments,” said the president, who presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Woods in 2019.
“He lives a life of pain. He has a lot of pain. He’s an amazing guy. He’s an amazing athlete. He does have pain,” Trump told the New York Post last week.
As clips from the arrest circulated on social media, reactions quickly turned from concern to comedy. The internet couldn’t stay serious for too long and fueled the virality with the following memes.
